Look what the catwalk dragged in

Belgian model Hanne Gaby Odiele “of the very large forehead” ... Hideous is the new beautiful, on the street and in the fashion shows and magazines.

Relativities

Emma-Kate Symons

It’s old, sad news that catwalk models are getting skinnier and more shrivelled by the year.

But why doesn’t the fashion insider set, dominated by juice-fasting emaciated magazine editors, and gay male designers set on turning little girls into stick-figured little boys, admit the obvious: they are also becoming downright ugly.

The Beauty Myth of Naomi Wolf’s 1990s feminist rage has now become The Ugly Conspiracy.

This new unsightly aesthetic goes just as much for the scowling bags of bones on the runways of Sydney, London, New York or Paris as it does for their inverse, but equally unattractive, “ordinary” female form.

Save us from the lip-plumped, huge-breasted, clown eyebrows and clomping stilettos of reality stars like Kim Kardashian and her style acolytes in Australia, the United Kingdom (just check out the monstrosities girls deck themselves out in at race days), Ireland, and the US.

Hideous is the new beautiful, on the street and in the fashion shows and magazines.

I came of age in the 1990s, that heyday of the stunningly gorgeous, fleshy Supermodel. She was a powerful glamour-puss throwback to the elegant Hollywood divas of an earlier epoque. Chubby she was not, but curves weren’t verboten, as they are today.

George Michael’s cult video for his song Freedom, released at the outset of the decade, celebrated his full turning of the Wham page. Fortunately neither George nor his cherished behind appeared in the clip.

The song was lip-synched by a fabulous posse of mannequins who ‘‘didn’t get out of bed for less than $US10,000 a day’’ – yes the Aussie dollar was worth considerably less then. The stars were Linda Evangelista (who made the $10k quip), Cindy Crawford, Christy Turlington, Naomi Campbell, and Tatjana Patitz.

Together they conjured up images of a new generation of Jane Russells, Marilyn Monroes, Katharine Hepburns, and Marlene Dietrichs. Their consoeurs included Claudia Schiffer, Helena Christensen, Stephanie Seymour and Carla Bruni.

Feisty eyebrows and big noses

We all wanted to look like them and that was because they were undeniably beautiful, stylish and sexy, something that had as much to do with their presence and personalities as their great looks. Above all they were womanly and, with the exception of Kate Moss, appeared to have moved well past pre-pubescence.

So who do we have as their replacements today? Overall there is a cohort of much younger, barely-out-of-their-teens models like Cara – gigantic eyebrows – Delevingne; Belgian Hanne Gaby Odiele of the very large forehead; and Australia’s frankly unremarkable ex-skateboarder Julia Nobis.

The Bondi-bred Nobis is often presented on magazine covers as if she is wearing little make-up, and showing up her rather large nose. No offence, but this overly slender young lady isn’t a patch on Schiffer or Karen Mulder. And haven’t we had our fill of pale young models who look like they just stepped off the Siberian steppe or actually did? Elle Macpherson would be considered too tanned and happy for today’s miserable runways.

The best example of the homely girl trend, even if many of these models can look pretty if properly made-up and dressed, was demonstrated in Hedi Slimane’s controversial fall-winter, ready-to-wear collection for Saint Laurent.

We consumers of course aren’t fooled and are hardly going to bowl out of the house looking like Pejic, Legler or Nobis. The Australian Women’s Weekly recently published photographs titled ‘‘Before Bones Were Beautiful’’. The series compared the luscious ladies of the ’90s – Crawford looked positively Rubenesque in a ’92 campaign for Versace – with the skin/bone/nothing catwalkers of today. Readers agreed overwhelmingly that the earlier generation did it better.

This isn’t to suggest all these girls are inherently ugly, but they have been picked for their stranger features which are often then exaggerated.

And, perhaps with the exception of mannequins like Delevingne, they almost never smile. Reporting backstage at Paris fashion week this year, I was struck by how desperately depressed the models looked. Like skeletal robots, they stared grimly into their smartphones, while their hair and faces were prodded and pulled, never touching the food provided for the stylists and journalists. For their efforts, they were yelled at like cows in a cattle call.

It made me think of white slavery, because despite some efforts to represent the spectrum of global beauty, nearly all the girls are white.

If you go way back to the ’50s, the glamour models were so elegant and poised, they often ended up marrying British lords. The breathtaking Wenda Rogerson wedded photographer Norman Parkinson.

Oh, please, can’t we have some of that style back, and what about 1970s icons like Jerry Hall? And while we’re at it, bring back Cindy, Claudia, Naomi, Linda, Christy and Helena, and not just for occasional campaigns.

They’re all in the forties or older and look ravishing. Something that could never be said for today’s excuse for models.